Southern China floods kill 39 after tropical storm rains

Flooding in southern China killed 39 people after days of heavy rain from Tropical Storm Maysak, with the deadliest damage centered in Hengzhou, where reservoir failures sent torrents of water through the city. Vice Mayor Ding Wei of Nanning, which oversees the area, said 26 people died there, while nine more people were still missing across Guangxi as officials raced to account for the missing.

Guangxi authorities said 375,000 people across 63 county-level regions in 14 cities were affected, and 130,000 residents had been evacuated or relocated. The earlier official toll had stood at six on Tuesday.

At least three reservoirs in Hengzhou failed in the flood: the Liulan Reservoir and Yunbiao Reservoir experienced overtopping and breaches, while the Liuwang Reservoir overflowed. CCTV reported 637 millimeters of rain in Luwei Town over 24 hours between July 5 and July 6. Across Guangxi, 341 reservoirs were above flood-limit levels and 56 monitoring stations on 41 rivers were above warning thresholds.

Rescue crews were deployed across the province in extraordinary numbers. Guangxi authorities said more than 8,000 personnel, over 1,700 vehicles and 5,700 boats were involved in the response, while the Ministry of Emergency Management allocated more than 36,000 additional disaster-relief items to the province. China also sent 150,000 disaster-relief items to the flood-hit region as President Xi Jinping urged all-out flood-control and disaster-relief efforts.

Military teams said they brought more than 10,000 trapped students and teachers out of a cluster of schools in Guigang, about 60 kilometers northeast of Hengzhou, and state television showed children and staff in bright orange life vests being ferried through water that had swallowed the school grounds. In Hengzhou, authorities warned residents about snakes escaping from a farm and told them to stock up on antivenom. A zoo in Guigang said more than 100 animals were missing, including zebras, porcupines and tropical birds, while an animal shelter in Binyang County tried to rescue roughly 200 cats and dozens of dogs from deep water. One resident, Lu Xiaofei, said her brother’s family had been forced onto an upper floor because, "The water in the house is over one person’s height."